Quintin Smith’s rule of three on the Bastionland podcast

I’ve just listened to Quintin Smith (Quinns) on Chris McDowell’s Bastionland podcast. The idea of the podcast is that guests bring three games to discuss. Quinns brought Torchbearer, Sidereal Confluence, and Jubensha.

(Quinns is a games journalist who used to review boardgames on Shut Up And Sit Down and now reviews tabletop RPGs on Quinns Quest.)

While the podcast is great, four things specifically caught my attention.

#1 Sidereal Confluence

This sounds just up my street. Sidereal Confluence is an economic trading board game with simultaneous play, asymmetric powers, and negotiation that copes with up to nine players. Sounds awesome!

It also sounds like a great base for the trading rules in a freeform…

Having read more about Sidereal Confluence on boardgamegeek, the designer is writing an RPG around the setting. (His design notes tell the story of the game, while this thread goes into the underlying logic of the different aliens.)

Anyway, Sidereal Confluence is now on my wish list, although I don’t know when I’ll get to play it because it’s a four player game and I don’t think it will appeal to Mrs H.

The point Quinns was making by referring to a board game in an RPG podcast was, why don’t we see more unbalanced PCs in RPGs? The current trend is for balanced PCs, but why not experiment with making them unbalanced – or at least so they play very differently?

I’m not sure I have a strong view, but it’s an interesting point, and I can imagine Most Trusted Advisors would work with asymmetric powers.

#2 Jubensha

Their discussion around Jubensha clarified (I think) some of the differences between Jubensha and freeforms. Because Jubensha is designed for six players, the game is more focused on those players’ emotional journey. (There are lots of larps that do this (especially Nordic larps), but Jubensha sounds more mechanical than most larps.)

For me, however, I love the buzz that I get from a large multi-player freeform. At Peaky, we typically write games for 8-10 players, and often, that seems too small for me.

#3 What can other games learn from having a GM at the table?

Quinns and McDowell also discussed games where one person has a facilitating (ie a GM) role. TTRPGs are almost unique in that regard: it’s not something you often see in boardgames or traditional murder mystery games, and they reflected that maybe Western-style murder mystery games could learn something.

Of course, I was shouting at the podcast because that’s what we do at Freeform Games. We call our GMs “hosts.”

(I wasn’t shouting very loudly, though, because if we’d been better at spreading the word then maybe things would be different.)

#4 Why don’t we see more pre-generated PCs?

Finally, Quinns pointed out that the advantage of giving players pregens (which happens in Jubensha – and freeforms) is that it lets the designer link the characters together to create tension and drama.

And why don’t RPGs do more of that?

I think the answer is:

• Historical, as in it’s not how D&D did it back in 1974. And that’s now become cultural – ie, players creating their own characters is now how rpgs work.
• Most players like the ownership that comes from creating their own character. Only weirdos like me would rather be given a character.
• Pregenerated PCs are great for one-shots and may not be suited for endless campaigns.

That’s not to say that inter-character linkage isn’t happening.

Many PbtA games have questions linking characters on their playsheets, and the pregens in ALIEN’s cinematic scenarios are designed to drive the adventure in interesting directions. (I’m sure there are others.)

Then there’s Lady Blackbird, which feels like an almost-perfect blend of situation, character and rules. (McDowell and Quinns touch briefly on Lady Blackbird – I wrote about it here.)

 And as I’ve said before (and hinted at here), getting your pregens right for a convention game is half the battle. I find that when players are riffing off each other’s characters and the characters are tied into the scenario, my life as a GM is so much easier.

Quintin Smith’s rule of three

So anyway, give the podcast a listen. It’s worth it.